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We’re in a phase in advertising where the medium is not only influential, but also highly inspirational. People want to be moved by what they see. They want brands to tell stories and not just convey jargon filled, superficially packaged product features with mindless portrayal of the same. Some examples of inspirational ads with a great story-build, would be the bournvita ad, KBC’s ‘loudspeaker‘ commercial, PepsiCo’s ‘Back to school’ ad and Under Armour’s amazing Misty Copeland commercial, among others.

Such ads, naturally, get talked about more and shared more.

Jumping on the bandwagon, is Nescafe, whose strategy so far was focused on highlighting moments that seamlessly relate to coffee. With this commercial, they’ve put in a lot of thought to create magic around their brand and enhance the connect with audiences.

This moving commercial features an odd story of a stand-up comedian who stammers. It begins with him performing in front of a crowd while telling the story of how his stammer had earlier affected his choice of career. He tells it with subtle humour weaved in, with prominent self-criticism. This is what hooks you onto the story. At no point does he indulge in self-pity even though there are slight glimpses of it. The treatment of this story is where the real appeal lies.

The story proceeds to show how he decided to turn things around and use the stammering as a strength instead of being pulled down by it. Perfectly timed, the product is first shown at just about this exact moment. Association to victory – simply perfect. As the story proceeds with a subtle background score of a piano, you can’t help but place yourself in his shoes and fall in love with his beautiful story.

With a generous amount of adorably funny moments, he goes on to thank coffee (doesn’t name the brand) for giving him the strength to go on. This is quickly followed by humour to dampen any forced product placement. Quoting him, ‘Thank God for coffee. It kept me going and kept you awake’. Perfect again, isn’t it?

After this, the video charges forward to a victorious tone where he enthusiastically breaks into ‘Let’s get started’. With this, Nescafe flawlessly leads us to their tagline ‘It all starts with a Nescafe’.

All I want to do is meet the script-writer and give him a pat on his back for this beautiful piece of monologue. I don’t think I’ve seen such a seamless brand tie-in before, where the brand takes the limelight without compromising the story.

Temptations Treats introduced Temptation Tumblers, a cat treat that you can toss, roll and treat. The Mars Petcare brand’s new Temptations Tumblers—treats are apparently more perfectly spherical that regular old Temptations treats. This commercial focuses on the ‘play’ aspect while feeding your cat.

This new one-minute commercial is a hilariously dramatic representation of play time with cats using the product. The entire video, with its breath-taking slow-mo shots and intense dub-step music makes for a perfectly delightful watch.

The video begins with three people – one a soccer player, another, a football star and third, a tennis player – preparing for a seemingly intense game. You soon realise that the ball for each of their moves is replaced by a perfectly spherical Temptations treat before the real starts of the ad enter.

Cats.

Fluffy, adorable and stunning cats.

The ad moves on to show some amazing moves by cats that are chasing, or rather, playing ball with the treats. The entire visual depiction of play time comes together beautifully and goes on, to show that play-time is a serious sport. Keeping all of that aside there are so many cats in one video! Has to go viral, right?

McCann, Sydney partners with The MTV Exit foundation, an organisation which strives for the end of exploitation and human trafficking, to make this amazing awareness ad with new approach.

This video ‘Broken Dreamers’, features an original song by Paris-based electro pop artist Birkii, and tells the story of three characters caught in nightmarish modern-day slavery scenarios. The stories unfold in the form of a pop-up storybook, with excellent transitions that are beautifully wound with contextual colour-play and music.

The pop-up approach to portray the story is also a parallel representation of the innocence in these victims and the naiveté involved in these scenarios. Each story begins with the classic ‘Once upon a time’ phrase and progresses to tell a series of unfortunate events, highlighting the dangers of the racket.

Considering how sensuous deodorant ads have become of recent, it is only natural that condom ads surpass it to a certain degree to distinguish the product. Most of these ads display the physical aspect of sex in a similar manner. Much to the point where it all looks the same.

Bringing in a breath of fresh air was Durex’s claim to viral fame, ‘Do The Rex’ that featured Ranveer Singh in a refreshing and fun avatar, singing and dancing jovially to represent his love for sex. I absolutely loved that video and it’s taboo breaking efforts in a humorous manner.

But if there was one ad that stuck to the conventional way of showing love-making but with a new twist, this would be it. The ad features two gorgeous dancers, performing to a seductive number. The sensuous dance steps are translations of various sex positions that one would find in the book of love, Kamasutra, from which the brand derives its’ name.

Each shot is breathtakingly beautiful and blends dancing with sexual positions in a flawless manner. It makes it look like art, which it is. The ad adds a further aspirational value to the act of making love by making it look exhilarating and exotic without anything being said at all.

I love the ‘Art of making love’ approach above anything else. It isn’t a new communication strategy or a new approach to sex, but their execution is definitely applause worthy.

Cadbury Bournvita, one of India’s most trusted brands, has successfully become part of a child’s daily nutrition consumption, ensured by their mothers. This makes mothers their primary target group with the end consumer being their child. Over the years, their communication strategy has evolved in various manners but their core goal has always been to make Bournvita, a daily drink for kids.

Last year, in March, they launched one of their most successful commercials of all time, Aadatein – Tayyari Jeet ki. This commercial, with its superb story, flawless script and heart-racing visuals was goose-bump inducing. Aadatein, which literally translates into ‘habits’, is the catch in the new series. ‘Tayaari Jeet ki’ roughly translates into preparing your child for victory.

Their aim is to encourage mothers to inculcate strong habits in their kids, no matter how difficult it is. It focuses on the importance of motherhood in shaping a child’s life. A bull’s-eye, right there.

Watch the amazing commercial here:

Continuing the legacy, they took the same mother-son duo and took it a step further. From preparing your child to win, it moves towards ‘Shakti har race ke liye’, i.e. power for every race you take on, no matter how big. Here the focus lies on the ‘power’ as compared to the ‘victory’. This proposition has a wider reflection among the TG.

The commercial begins with the same mother from the previous commercial talking about how he won the last race but one needs power for every race in life. Yet again beautifully scripted, this commercial just about manages to create the same magic as last time. It definitely doesn’t surpass the previous one’s emotional invoking ability but is still quite incredible.

Watch the new commercial here:

Each time I see these ads, I’m very close to being teary-eyed. The power of motherhood has never been captured this beautifully before. It shows the strength and commitment it needs. Imagine the inspiration a mother would receive from simply watching this ad. When a brand can connect so strongly to the TG and even beyond it, it is highly creditable.

With this series, Bournvita has gone miles ahead in owning the ‘habits’ space that addresses its main aim. What more can one want for their brand?

A Montreal-based animal sanctuary Rosie Animal Adoption has done the least imaginable thing and used the dating app Tinder, to find homes for the city’s unwanted canine population.

Tinder’s popularity amongst their potential target audience is undeniable. Rosie Animal Adoption created Tinder profiles for its dogs available for adoption.

Here’s a crash course on how Tinder works: You need to ‘like’ someone by swiping right based on their images, description and interests. If you liked someone and that person likes you back, it’ll be a match and you are then allowed to chat.

In this case, they identified dog-lovers on Tinder and ‘liked’ their profiles after looking at their ‘interests’ section. Only those that has dogs as an interest were ‘liked’. As users got on the app, they’d come across cute profiles of dogs and puppies. Those that liked the dogs’ profiles and were matched, were able to chat with someone at the adoption centre.

This led to awareness and encouragement amongst dog lovers to adopt. Tinder’s natural swiping user interface proved a new way to connect dogs with potential future owners. By seeping into the normal purpose of the app, Rosie Animal Adoption is both, taking its services to a new audience, and generating sizeable free publicity for itself.

It’s a great new approach and a smart way of using an untapped medium on our mobile. Watch the video below:

As part of Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Campaign, National Neurological Institute conducted this media led campaign that went far beyond the expected positivity in results. So below is an excerpt from their YouTube description, explaining what the campaign was all about.

You’ll understand this picture below once you watch the video.

*YouTube excerpt*

Early warning sign of Alzheimer’s is that people remember things from the past, but can’t remember things happening in the present. We talked to Alzheimer’s patients and asked them what are the latest news/events they can remember. Using their memories we created: THE NEWS FROM THE PAST. Where each article was based on a memory of an actual Alzheimer’s patient.

In cooperation with the leading newspapers and TV stations, on World’s Alzheimer’s day newspapers were published with front pages featuring news from the past.Also, the news on the TV stations were substituted with news from the past.

The main message was: “These are the latest news for the people with Alzheimer’s” and people could find more information about the disease on http://www.alz.mk.

This campaign, had a 360 degree approach and included all forms of media to spread awareness. This integrated approach works very well towards building mass awareness. Leaving the theoretical part aside, the main reason this campaign deserves great appreciation is because it manages to give one a glimpse into what the future might be. It takes you right to where you’d stand if you had early signs of Alzheimer’s. What’s even better is that they managed to relevantly reach a large audience with a single campaign. That, in itself, is a stellar achievement.

At the end of the day, all they did, is put one in the shoes of a potential Alzheimer’s patient. When something is THAT personalised, it’s difficult to forget the message that comes with the campaign. The results that the campaign yielded, as seen in the video, is a testimony of the grand success in itself.

Global Security Resouces, a multi-discipline security consulting firm, based in the USA, came up with this series of 3 print ads to promote their ‘mistake proof’ service.

To come about to that conclusion in the viewer’s mind, it challenges one’s mind and highlights the slip-ups that one might have while trying to recognise various threats in daily life. Quite often, we form quick perspectives by appearances and the obvious stereotypes in our minds. This series goes beyond it to prove that all is not as it seems and that threat can and will come in any form.

The series uses the ‘repetitive design‘ technique wherein one’s mind can easily be fooled to skip a particular odd element. Plus, by adding one obvious ‘odd’ element, the probability of one finding the ‘actual’ odd element reduces to a great extent. Throw in the obvious stereotyping and you have an ad that’s mighty insightful.

I love the layout, the idea and the technique in which the message is delivered. The series works on a need-gap strategy where-in it makes you realise that you have a need for something and the brand fills the gap in by placing their product as the solution.

A few days ago, the ALS association, fighting against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, set up the Ice Bucket Challenge, to raise awareness around their cause.The challenge quickly gained support from major celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga along with big players in the biz like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

Now I have to say that I have always hated these Facebook-nomination challenges. There is no real fun or ‘challenge’ to it and I just find it generally sad.

But this one is different for two reasons. First, it is for a good cause that has been popularised by the most influential celebrities out there and the second reason is that big businesses have started tagging along.

On the contrary, the second point brings an issue to light. The problem is, when business gets involved, it is always questionable whether it comes from philanthropic motives or other perhaps, some other agenda. Here, the question intrigued people enough to find out about what is happening.

I would say that Mark Zuckerberg joining the fun is no surprise at all.His platform has always been driving this kind of content and getting it viral. Therefore, not participating could have almost been taken as denying the sole purpose of Facebook and what it can do. It also shows a bit of humanity in a character often depicted as pretty rigid and not really playing by the rules. Plus, it’s great publicity.

But then Bill Gates comes along, and on that one… it’s really hard to make your mind up around it! This got people even more intrigued. The man who is the face of philanthropy just came aboard!

Clearly, he did not just take on the challenge there but he went on and did much more than that.

Let me explain.

This video is more researched visually with a definite camera set up, edit and scenario as opposed to the simple “one take” video that everybody else did. He (or his team) even went further and built a full arch just to pour the bucket of ice onto his face! Add this to the obvious product placement at the beginning and BAM! You’ve got some kick-ass advertising content.He converted the challenge into an advertisement. An advertisement by its very nature is a more consumable form of content.

So, now that we have agreed that if it looks and feels like advertising, then it must be advertising, the question stands. Is that a good or a bad thing?

Well, to me it is the best thing to have happened to the challenge! And it is for a lot of reasons. The first one being that if you take on a challenge and you find a way to make it cooler, you just HAVE to do it! And this is exactly what they did here.

Some will argue that this is just a narcissistic fad for wealthy men to look good in the eyes of the public, but it’s without knowing Bill Gates. The man has cared for the foundation he created for nearly 15 years and is probably the most famous philanthropist in the world. He doesn’t need any of that to look good!

Some others would say that pouring a bucket of ice on top of your head doesn’t get money to the foundation. Well first, Bill Gates does say right at the beginning of the video that he WILL donate to the ALS, and second it seems the association is actually raising millions, thanks to this campaign. So I reckon it works just fine.

Transforming the challenge into advertising, permitted the video to go viral by allocating resources to make it look fun and probably also gave it a little push in media and PR from the Microsoft team, which, in the end, raised a lot of awareness.

One thing you can ask yourself as well is: is it really different from every Pro-Bono campaign that advertising agencies do all year round, investing in people and money just to get awards in end? I don’t think so. But this time, all the factors tied well together to make I work.

I also really just like the off-beat atmosphere of this video and find it really refreshing that one of the most influential business man in history can still play around with his reputation. And that is why I think what they did here is pretty cool.

But if you don’t like that style, you can always get a little louder and go for the Charlie Sheen way.

Oh wait he’s plugging TMZ? Damn it!

Author:

Benoit Finck

Benoit is a French copywriter that has lived across 4 countries over the last 4 years. He is passionate about advertising, cultural differences and Stand Up Paddling (some kind of surfing) that he practices every time he gets a chance to get out of the office.

A perfect scene begins by getting rid of clichés, or doing away with what’s been seen and heard a million times before. It’s only when you keep perfecting, you end up with an original voice.

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The above ad aims at highlighting the aspects of originality and perfection. I like how they’ve kept the theme of the product in the ad to convey the message. This increases the clarity of the message and holds great appeal for the target audience. I love the use of melodramatic clichés in the ad to exaggerate the need for ‘originality’ in your craft.